A Measure of Progress

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From The Bookseller:

Will we see this week as the moment when everything changed, a peek through the looking glass into a new era? I speak not of the sometime author and Conservative MP Boris Johnson becoming the UK’s Prime Minister, but the release of Amazon’s new weekly charts showing, for the first time, the impact of the huge but opaque digital sector on book sales.

There are plenty of known knowns from the first week’s release. Rachel Abbott, the author behind the biggest-selling fiction title of the week, And So it Begins, has long been a digital hit-maker. Her début thriller, Only the Innocent, was self-published in 2011, with Amazon revealing in 2015 that she was its bestselling “indie” author in the five years since Kindle launched. Like many of these authors, however, she has been largely absent from Nielsen BookScan’s bestseller universe, her top-seller having shifted just 6,955 copies in print. The chart also highlights the success of new digitally-led publishers such as Joffe Books and the more familiar Bookouture, which feature along with Amazon imprints Lake Union Publishing and Thomas & Mercer.

There is also the impact of audio, particularly in the most read/listens chart, where Audible’s release of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, read by Stephen Fry, sits in 10th, below the seven Harry Potter titles, their popularity also augmented by the Fry-narrated audio editions. That so many readers are listening to backlist audio shows the potential of the market, but also that it may need a different approach.

Link to the rest at The Bookseller

Amazon UK book charts top 10 most read non-fiction books this week (across digital, audio and subscription service books)

1. Becoming – by Michelle Obama

2. This is Going to Hurt – by Adam Kay

3. Sapiens – by Yuval Noah Harari

4. 12 Rules for Life – by Jordan B. Peterson

5. The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*** – by Mark Manson

6. Can’t Hurt Me – David Goggins

7. The Secret Barrister – by the Secret Barrister

8. The Chimp Paradox – by Professor Steven Peters

9. The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read – by Philippa Perry

10. Educated – by Tara Westover

Amazon UK book charts most sold fiction books this week (across physical, digital, audio and subscription service books)

1. And So It Begins – by Rachel Abbott

2. Darkness on the Fens – by Joy Ellis

3. The Winner – by David Badalcci

4. The World’s Worst Teachers – David Walliams

5. The Things I know – Amanda Drowse

6. The Lemon Tree Hotel – Rosanna Ley

7. I Looked Away – Jane Corey

8. Child’s Play – Angela Marsons

9. What You Did – Claire McGowan

10. The Perfect Child – Lucinda Berry

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10 thoughts on “A Measure of Progress”

  1. Yikes! What happened to TPV’s Home page? I’m getting this weird blue text on a plain white screen, with post titles only (no text), and it won’t show me more than the top 8 posts. There is a Load More button, but it does not load more when I click it! Help!

    When I click one of the titles, I get to a page that looks like normal TPV, and I can read the post and comment on it. But when I click Home on the navigation bar, it sends me back to that weird home page.

    • It’s the mobile home page.
      The server has been intermittently confused for a week or so.

      Sounds like somebody improved WordPress again.
      IT folk like to improve systems until they break.
      Great job security. 😉

        • The weird thing in all this is that – before current problems – I never saw the “mobile” page even on my mobile devices (phone and tablets), and nor did I want to. At least the one time it has happened on my phone the desktop button (almost hidden by low contrast between text and background) did work, which is more than can be said for the PC version of that button which, as you found, never has any effect.

    • @ J.M. Ney-Grimm

      Agree with you COMPLETELY.

      PG, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! 🙁

      (I love the old theme.)

      • I also love the old theme but I think that PG has got to the stage of “it is broke so I’ll have to fix it”.

    • Phew! I can see the normal home page again. That was bad when I couldn’t access TPV.

      @James F. Brown

      I suspect Mike Hall is right. Once a theme’s creator stops updating said theme, it interfaces less and less well with WordPress as time goes by. Eventually it develops so many problems that the only solution is to choose a new theme. That is easier said than done. I was just helping someone find a new theme, and getting a good one that has the features you need, as well as the graphic design that suits your content, is challenging!

  2. Yea – Amazon is showing us more on sales!

    Waa – Amazon isn’t showing us sales the way we want them to!

    I liked the whine at the end where the OP claims the ratings of story in question should be broken into e/p – and therefore not up there on the charts.

    Me, I don’t care ‘how’ the buy/read it, it’s that they did buy it in any form at all. (After all, for a story are we tracking sales or only books/ebooks?)

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